Times Writers Group: Numbers show failed promises of Obamacare

With enrollment complete, Americans can see that Affordable Care Act isn’t the coverage answer president promised

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Phyllis VanBuren
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Story Highlights

Obama’s signature achievement looks like a failure after first year.

Analysis shows things could likely get worse in coming years.

Big Brother isn’t helping as many as it said it would.

The adage states the only things certain in life are death and taxes. This year, we could add confusion about the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

I prefer limited government and abundant Christian charity to provide for the needs of our fellow citizens, not a Big Brother government.

We know from the June 2012 Supreme Court ruling that Obamacare is a tax because Congress has the right to levy taxes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the bill had to be passed so people would know what is in the law. Four years after passage, what are they finding? What is Obamacare? It still is very controversial — a president’s legacy to be celebrated or endured.

With our focus on taxes in April, we know from the Heritage Foundation that Obamacare contains 18 new taxes, fees and penalties at a cost of an estimated $771 billion by 2022.

We know that many have not been able to keep their plan, their doctor or their hospital even though promised repeatedly.

Painful payments

We know the average family is not paying $2,500 less in premiums. Rather premiums and deductibles are much higher. The deductible for the catastrophic package (lower premiums and less coverage) is more than $6,300.

At this time, premiums are more than 10 percent higher in 19 states than before Obamacare, according to the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of data from HealthCare.gov and state-run exchanges. The same sources report the premiums for 27-year-olds will more than double in 11 states.

Maybe that explains why young people did not enroll. Two weeks ago, St. Cloud State University and MnSCU announced the end of the domestic student health insurance program due to increased premiums under Obamacare.

We also know 28 percent of the enrollees are ages 18-34, far short of the goal of enrolling 40 percent from that age range to offset higher costs of the older and infirm enrollees.

We do not know exactly how many people actually enrolled in Obamacare.

Last week, a blogger at the liberal Huffington Post summarized the numbers of the uninsured and those who remain uninsured after the enrollment period. Candidate Obama promised 100 percent coverage (universal) for 46 million uninsured citizens. That promise number shrank to 31 million as he started his presidency. A Gallup poll published April 16 reported about 85 percent of Americans have insurance.

The White House announced more than 7 million enrolled in the government program. But not all those people were among the previously uninsured. Many are those who lost their own health plans. Many enrolled but have not paid their premiums. Many applied for expanded Medicaid coverage and will be covered at taxpayer expense, not by premiums for which they pay. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office assumes that the number of uninsured will remain the same even after 10 years of Obamacare.

We do not know if more people benefit from Obamacare or struggle with the loss of other coverage.

At the State of the Union address, we met a woman who had no insurance, enrolled in Obamacare and was able to have medical attention when an illness was diagnosed.

But the media also report many stories of people who had coverage and care but have lost their programs, their doctors, their hospitals and even their medications. Leftist pundits deny their existence. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid even called them liars from the Senate floor.

We do not know the exact numbers of jobs lost due to the definition of full-time employment and required coverage. The CBO projects a loss of some 2.5 million full-time jobs, although not are all because of Obamacare. Even Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius resigned because Obamacare won.

I would prefer that the citizens were the winners.

This is the opinion of Phyllis VanBuren, a professor of Spanish, German and foreign language education who values family, friends, faith, honesty, liberty and integrity Her column is published the fourth Thursday of the month.